Building Big Efficient Cities: Borough Streets & Leveling Districts

Falc

Newcomer

16 300g2g pts

10 years ago

Oct 21, 2014, 9:07:43 PM

I'm wondering how much of this holds true for the Ardent Mages? They would ideally want a nook on their cities with a center tile open to place a Pillar but all surrounding tiles worked...

Antistone

Ardent

Antistone

Ardent

15 000g2g pts

10 years ago

Oct 21, 2014, 9:39:27 PM

If you're making a 2-district-wide line, you can "bend" the very last district in the line 60 degrees to the side, making a little Y shape.

This nets you get one more exploitation than a straight line, "for free" (i.e. with the same total number of districts and district levels). Furthermore, it creates two spots where you can drop ardent pillars such that they will have 6 of your city tiles within their radius (out of 7 total tiles they affect), which is probably the best you can do without sacrificing district levels (or having two separate cities whose borders exactly meet). So it's useful for everyone, but especially useful for Ardent Mages.

This will prevent you from further extending the line in that direction (efficiently), so you probably only want to do it on one side of the line, and only if you don't plan to continue building the city in that direction. But if one end of your line is at the border of the region anyway, there's very little potential downside.

Once your ardent pillars reach a level where they have an increased radius, of course, things get more complicated...

Falc

Newcomer

Falc

Newcomer

16 300g2g pts

10 years ago

Oct 22, 2014, 8:32:10 PM

AFAIK, pillar effects don't cross region boundaries.

Antistone

Ardent

Antistone

Ardent

15 000g2g pts

10 years ago

Oct 22, 2014, 8:57:52 PM

You're right; I discovered that shortly after writing that post, but forgot to come back and update it. Thanks for the catch.

Malfegore_

Newcomer

Malfegore_

Newcomer

10 years ago

Oct 29, 2014, 12:34:34 AM

Oh, so THAT is how you build up your cities. I never thought doing the stick is more beneficial, probably because it looks weird compared to the triangular setup. Well, so much for intuition.

-Noob-

Newcomer

-Noob-

Newcomer

10 years ago

Jan 10, 2015, 2:41:00 AM

Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong? I tried to form the "snake" design to level up my districts, but it's saying all of the middle tiles are still level 1.

jktstance

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jktstance

Newcomer

18 000g2g pts

10 years ago

Jan 10, 2015, 4:18:08 AM

In your setup, each city district is only surrounded by 2 others, one on each side. The exploitation tiles do not count (the tiles with crop fields and such at the edges of cities). A tile needs to be immediately adjacent to at least 4 other city tiles (not exploitation tiles) to level up.

MattTHM

Newcomer

MattTHM

Newcomer

10 years ago

Jan 10, 2015, 8:47:23 AM

Thanks, this was very helpful! Have been trying to figure out how to grow efficiently.

NJohnny

Newcomer

NJohnny

Newcomer

10 years ago

Jan 11, 2015, 8:15:51 AM

To expand on his answer.... Your city is 1 wide. (thus each district has 2 neighboring districts)

If you make your city 2 wide. each district with have 4 neighbors and grow to L2. (except the cities on the ends)

Jynks

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Jynks

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3 000g2g pts

10 years ago

Feb 19, 2015, 5:48:19 PM

j.a.paisley wrote:
Triangular City Layout

This is the most efficient layout if you're going to keep your city fairly small. A picture is worth a lot of blah blah blah, so here's how triangular cities work out.

I've color coded the districts as follows:

L0...yellow

L1...blue

L2...green

L3...red

L4...purple

I do not understand these examples.. Where is the original city? You can't place the yellow icons so far away form the center in the triangle one and then fill up the middle.. is that what you are saying?

natev

Newcomer

natev

Newcomer

10 years ago

Feb 19, 2015, 7:34:24 PM

Jynks wrote:
I do not understand these examples.. Where is the original city? You can't place the yellow icons so far away form the center in the triangle one and then fill up the middle.. is that what you are saying?

It doesn't matter where the original city is. It can be on any of your district tiles. A level 2 borough is exactly the same as a level 2 city center.

VIPAnwyl

Chameleon

VIPAnwyl

Chameleon

27 800g2g pts

10 years ago

Feb 25, 2015, 3:18:47 AM

Yes, only Cultists can have districts above level 2 currently.

TheDeadDude

Newcomer

TheDeadDude

Newcomer

1 700g2g pts

10 years ago

Apr 5, 2015, 2:59:06 AM

Hi there i really like your guide and i made an ardent mage guide with just about every bit of basic information i could compile together. Is it ok if i have a hotlink to your guide? I've already got the contribution, rights and special thanks set up so you get the all the credit for that bit of information. Otherwise i'll take it down if you want me to.

Garlic

Newcomer

Garlic

Newcomer

10 years ago

Apr 5, 2015, 6:17:51 PM

maybe I'm missing something or the thread is obsolete due to game updates... is there any reason why single district should be attached to more than other 4 districts?

natev

Newcomer

natev

Newcomer

10 years ago

Apr 5, 2015, 6:42:56 PM

Garlic wrote:
maybe I'm missing something or the thread is obsolete due to game updates... is there any reason why single district should be attached to more than other 4 districts?

Nope-- just that that's what ends up happening when you build triangle-style, which is the best ratio of lvl2 to lvl1 districts.

Nothing really wrong with building a stick either.

Furude

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Furude

Newcomer

1 700g2g pts

10 years ago

Apr 5, 2015, 9:50:36 PM

Triangle is not the best. Better option is double line.

TheDeadDude

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TheDeadDude

Newcomer

1 700g2g pts

10 years ago

Apr 6, 2015, 1:57:36 AM

Triangle is best for fast results and a smaller hit box vs sieges. If you have a ginormous line it can either cause problems when people are sieging your cities in the tactical grid or actually help you.

Two good examples would be making a line of districts along the coasts on an island map, your opponents won't be able to undock and attack you at all, they will have to go around. In another example a line could actually help connect your cities so that they reinforce each other when attacked when you otherwise normally wouldn't because of the distance between regions.

Two bad examples, depending on the terrain and faction you/opponents are playing you could end up funneling your units into a 1v1 stand off with little space to move around to battle with. This is great if your army is small facing off a larger army and bad if your army is large facing a smaller army. If you have no ranged or few ranged units this is the worst possible situation you could put yourself in.

Line cities are easier to conquer because if you have alot of movement you could just run around the city in circles while seiging. You can effectively lock out reinforcements or slowly burn everything to the ground alot easier with multiple small groups sieging/retreating. This can also be done with triangle cities but it's a little trickier.

Personally i like triangles most because most games don't last past turn 90 or so and fast benefits are better in the short and long run and your 2nd/3rd/4th cities don't have to be a triangle you can start making lines, depending on the terrain i'll use both.

fahbs

Newcomer

fahbs

Newcomer

10 years ago

Apr 23, 2015, 9:10:38 PM

Isn't the district level range only 1-2 for non-cultist factions? In that case wouldn't triangles not be worth it?

natev

Newcomer

natev

Newcomer

10 years ago

Apr 24, 2015, 8:37:27 PM

fahbs wrote:
Isn't the district level range only 1-2 for non-cultist factions? In that case wouldn't triangles not be worth it?

At 6 districts, you've got a 3:3 ratio on a triangle but only a 2:4 ratio on a stick. At 8 districts, the stick reaches 4:4 to the triangle's 3:5 or 4:4. Eventually the stick tends to outperform the triangle, but the triangle returns to beat the stick at triangular numbers (6, 10, 15, 21...) for which it only ever has 3 lvl 1 districts, while the stick always has 4 lvl 1 districts.

But imo it's all a bit silly. Take your actual approval and the possible exploitation tiles into account, and don't just build some shape dogmatically.

fahbs

Newcomer

fahbs

Newcomer

10 years ago

Apr 28, 2015, 5:39:41 PM

natev wrote:
At 6 districts, you've got a 3:3 ratio on a triangle but only a 2:4 ratio on a stick. At 8 districts, the stick reaches 4:4 to the triangle's 3:5 or 4:4. Eventually the stick tends to outperform the triangle, but the triangle returns to beat the stick at triangular numbers (6, 10, 15, 21...) for which it only ever has 3 lvl 1 districts, while the stick always has 4 lvl 1 districts.

But imo it's all a bit silly. Take your actual approval and the possible exploitation tiles into account, and don't just build some shape dogmatically.

Not sure what you mean by ratios.

But if a city space can only level up ONCE (from 1 to 2), I don't see the point of building beyond a size 6 triangle or double line. Unless there are amazing anomaly yields around the province, I stop at 6 hexes because I'd rather have the high approval bonuses. You turn a couple level 1s to 2s, but the level 2s will never improve further unless you're cultists. Super diminishing returns beyond 6 hexes.

I think the original post is a little misleading. As far as I can tell, there is no such thing as a level 0 district. They all start out at level 1.